Skins Series 3 Finale

Ah, Skins, the teen drama that’s captured the nations heart. Over the past 10 weeks, I’ve tuned in to watch the escapades of this new generation of characters and for the most part, I’m not going to lie, I’ve been disapointed. Whereas the first 2 series were pretty innovative, this series has proven that the now tried and tested forumla could do with shaking up. In the first episode of this, we were pretty poorly introduced to the new characters, they felt bland and uninspired and very few I felt I could grow to like. Fast forward 9 weeks and I feel almost the same.

Don’t get me wrong, the series has had some really good episodes, Episode 3-9 weren’t that bad, they had some good storylines and a couple of the characters started to become interesting. However 2 characters never did, those were Freddy and Effy, who unfortunately, are the main characters, and as such the finale caters for them.

The episode leads in from the end of Episode 8 where Cook and Effy ran away after Effy hit Katie with a rock (this was apparently supposed to be a shock, but I couldn’t have cared less). Anyway, it joins them in a small town, somewhere north of Bristol (which could be anywhere…) Where Cooks father lives. Effy, unsurprisingly hates it, and calls Freddy for help and it culminates in a big steeplechase involving piggybacking grannies and stealing a boat. It’s all fairly rushed towards the end and throughout it was impossible to tell where it could go from there. However, that said, it wasn’t the rush other finales have been known to be and as such, it felt weak and disapointing throughout.

The way I see it, last weeks episode would have been a better finale, they could have kept Cook and Effy’s whereabouts as an opener for next series. What I’ve always thought Skins does best was always it’s cliffhangars, even if they don’t go anywhere, they were always excellent in bringing the audience back next year, Tony got hit by a bus in season 1, which effectively garunteeed my viewing next year and Sid went looking for Cassie at the end of season 2, now this wasn’t going to be solved, but I watched this series, hoping for a tiny bt of insight (which we never got). This year, we got nothing, all the loose ends were tied up and there was no cliffhanger. Maybe it’s been done so the writers can start afresh next year, now we know the cast.

In conclusion, in terms of quality, it wasn’t a bad episode, a nice guest appearence from Peep Shows Superhans (I couldn’t imagine anyone else being Cooks’ dad) and some good characterisation. But if you look at it in terms of a series finale, you’re bound to be disapointed.